Pentagon Says Nuclear Missile Is In Grasp For North Korea

North Korea, its military officers shown here, claims it has powerful nuclear striking means on standby for a missile launch, and the Pentagon expresses “moderate confidence” that's true.

North Korea, its military officers shown here, claims it has...

WASHINGTON — A new assessment of North Korea's nuclear capability conducted by the Pentagon's intelligence arm has concluded for the first time, with “moderate confidence,” that the country has learned how to make a nuclear weapon small enough to be delivered by a ballistic missile.

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The assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency cautions that the weapon's “reliability will be low,” apparently a reference to the North's difficulty in developing accurate missiles or, perhaps, to the huge technical challenges of designing a warhead that can survive the rigors of flight and detonate on a specific target.

It is unclear whether other U.S. intelligence agencies agree with the assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency, which has primary responsibility for monitoring the missile capabilities of adversary nations.

Outside experts said the report's conclusions helped explain why the administration had announced last month that it was bolstering long-range anti-missile defenses in Alaska and California, designed to protect the West Coast, and was rushing another anti-missile system, originally not intended for deployment until 2015, to Guam.

The existence of the assessment was disclosed Thursday by Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., three hours into a budget hearing of the House Armed Services Committee with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey.

Its executive summary reads: “DIA assesses with moderate confidence the North currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles; however the reliability will be low.”

At another congressional hearing Thursday morning, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, sought to tamp down fears that the North Korean rhetoric could lead to an armed clash with the United States, South Korea and regional allies.

Clapper said, for instance, that in his personal experience, two other confrontations with the North — the seizure of the U.S. research ship Pueblo in 1968 and the death of two U.S. soldiers in a tree-cutting episode in a border area in 1976 — stoked tensions that were much greater between the two countries.

North Korea has now conducted three nuclear tests, including one this year, and shot a ballistic missile as far as the Philippines in December. U.S. and South Korean intelligence agencies believe that another test — perhaps of a midrange missile called the Musadan that can reach Japan, South Korea and almost as far as Guam — may be conducted in the coming days to celebrate the birth of Kim Il Sung, the country's founder.

At the Pentagon, there is particular concern about another missile, yet untested, called the KN-08, which may have significantly longer range.

“They now have a deliverable warhead,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, a former State Department official now at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

“They don't have anything that could reach American bases beyond Japan.”